Coaching in a competitive sport must be one of the toughest jobs around. When you cap off a fantastic season with a couple of severe pastings from two teams you know you could beat on a better night, discouragement follows. Then, criticism for what you thought was the best job (beating Bernalillo 95-0) you could do is devastating. I want to encourage our football coaches to keep on with their great efforts. I also don’t want to lose our coaches. The letter has to do with what must hurt the most, namely the criticism for “running up” the score against Bernallilo.First, there is the assumption that Coach Scott could have prevented the running up of the score. In some sports, if the game is safely beyond loss, the coach sends in the second team, not to keep down the score but to give experience to other players and to reduce the probability of injury to his or her starters. Coach Scott doesn’t have a second team. Schools that have a second team trot 75 players onto the field; Los Alamos fields 30 players. Nearly everyone on the sidelines sees action. There is no team of second-class players against whom a weak opposition could show some fight. Perhaps the coaches could tell the players to miss tackles, run more slowly and avoid blocking to give the opposition a chance to score more. I certainly would not want the coaches to do that. There is no player who would want his coach to do that.Second, in any competitive sport, the primary objective is to put one’s best foot forward at all times. In tennis, we strive for straight sets, each six-love. We never, never deliberately lose a set. In cross country, we try for a perfect team score; we don’t instruct runners to let themselves get beat so as to make the score closer. In wrestling, we try to pin every opponent. In swimming and diving, should we deliberately lose a race or dive poorly? Of course not.I don’t know of a single competitive sport where there is any place for compassion. Why should it be any different in football? As a loser (against Capital and Moriarty), we were drubbed but not embarrassed. Instead, we welcome the lesson as to where improvement is needed. Football coaches, please ignore the criticism. Congratulations on a fantastic season. Tom PigottLos Alamos